


Two People Talking - Kerr Avon and the Duke of Avon

by Sally M (sallymn)



Series: Two People Talking... [8]
Category: Blake's 7, These Old Shades - Georgette Heyer
Genre: AU, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 09:35:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallymn/pseuds/Sally%20M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arrogance obviously passed down the line...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two People Talking - Kerr Avon and the Duke of Avon

**Two People Talking...**

"You assume," His Grace drawled, tapping long, thin fingers on the plain surface before him and watching the other man with a hooded, contemptuous gaze, "that I intend to permit this. An arrogant assumption." 

"Hardly." The stranger stared back with dark brown eyes just as cold and scornful. "You have even less choice than I do." 

Avon's lips narrowed in anger - whoever this somewhat ill-mannered, meanly dressed commoner was, he was clearly unimpressed by the Duke's superiority of birth, manners or mode - but His Grace was far too intelligent to rise to such crude bait. 

He stared forward at the huge curved windows, into a night sky impossibly huge and empty and unlike any he had seen. They were - so this man said - far from his home, from his country... from his world. Impossibly, unthinkably far. 

"You misjudge your position," the stranger went on. "However great and might you may have been, in that time and place you came from, here it means nothing. Absolutely nothing." He smiled suddenly, a hard, thin smile that was incongruously - insupportably - familiar. "Your skills... with equines, with obsolete weapons, obsolete languages, and even more obsolete - games... will not help you survive. And before you say it," with a flick of his own long, square-tipped - _workman's_ \- hands, "no, I owe you nothing. Keep that in mind." 

"If your 'science'," and oh, the derision in that word, like the cold steel he wore by his side and which this man has decried so lightly, "is to be believed -" 

The stranger glanced at the strange, sparkling box by his side,. "It is - though I like it no more than you. Neither Orac nor DNA - blood, as you would call it - lies." 

"It is in your interests to return me to my own, more civilised place." 

"Civilised is... a relative thing." He cast a mocking look at the Duke's outfit, blue velvet and silver lace, diamonds and frills, and smoothed a hand over his black leather sleeve. "In this relatively civilised time, you look... absurd." 

Avon's own hand went to his sword. Vitally necessary or not, the man's insulting words could not be - 

"Kill me," the man purred, "and you will die here, alone." 

Avon's hand dropped away from the hilt. Vital, it appeared. 

The stranger sighed. "I do, it seems, need you to return where you came from. For that reason, I will keep you alive until Orac can find a way to do that." 

"Orac." Avon stared at the glittering box. "You name menial equipment... how amusing." 

"And if you insist on insulting the equipment," this was said with a touch of asperity, "you may find that it returns you somewhere lethally unsuitable, such as an ice floe or a volcano on the other side of your Earth." 

"It would not dare." 

"Why not? It - would not be in the least inconvenienced by your premature - or long overdue - death. On the other hand, while there is a chance that I am your descendant, I am unwilling to take the chance that your death would... prevent my birth." 

Avon smiled slowly, insultingly incredulous at the very idea. "You truly believe that _you_ are of ducal blood?" 

"Ducal? What..." The man sighed. "I do not know what you are talking about, and care less. But believe me or not, you truly have as few survival skills in my universe as I would have in yours, possibly less. You _need_ to return to your own world. I need to be certain that your blood is passed on, if it wasn't before you left. From what scraps of information Orac has on your 'more civilised' time," with a sneer every bit as fine and derisive as His Grace's best, "it's entirely possible." 

Kerr Avon stood, and stared down at the Duke of Avon with eyes the same shape and colour of his own. "Believe me, I'll be as delighted to see you leave my universe as you will be to leave." 

**\- the end -**

**Author's Note:**

> (Written for a dialogue challenge)


End file.
